South Africa’s Black Management Forum (BMF) wants the government to set up a commission of enquiry into racism and unfair discrimination in the workplace.
In a paper delivered by its national director, Jerry Vilakazi, at the National Assembly labour portfolio committee on Wednesday, the forum argued that such a commission should be given a one-year mandate “to review incidents and cases of racial discrimination in the workplace and the extent to which blacks, women and people with disabilities have been advanced — or not — in employment”.
The forum said it is concerned by the failure of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) to issue guidelines for the country “on the setting of numerical targets and benchmarks [for employment equity], in spite of being mandated to do so by employment-equity legislation”.
A CEE report this week indicated that the white slice of top management in South African business was slightly up between 2001 and 2003, although the white slice of senior management had slipped slightly.
The BMF argued that there is “pervasive and insidious” discrimination in “virtually all the professions in South Africa”, particularly those that continue to be dominated by the minority white population. This includes the judiciary, it said.
“Evidence of this [has] also been demonstrated by the recent public discourse indicating serious challenges of institutional and individual racism within the judiciary.”
The forum wants “a renewed campaign” to enforce employment equity under the supervision of the Department of Labour.
“This should be a partnership initiative between the department, organised labour, black business and interest-group organisations to work together to identify and eliminate all instances of unfair discrimination in South Africa.” — I-Net Bridge